"That's funny!" exclaimed Giraffe. "Ain't you able to recollect seeing the gentleman, or anything he said to you?"
"That's the queer part of it," he declared. "Sometimes it comes to me that I must have done it, and I think I see it all plain before me. Then it gets mixed, and I'm not so sure. You see, here's what bothers me. That same morning I met a friend who was going about ten miles off in his dad's machine, and he asked me to have a spin with him. Just couldn't resist, boys, and we did go licketty-split. I'm telling you right now."
"I saw you go past our house, riding for fair," remarked Step Hen.
"Tell us the rest, Bumpus; what had that ride in a car to do with the important letter your father gave you to be delivered at the bank?" asked Davy Jones.
"A heap, I'm afraid," answered the other, making a wry face. "I can just remember that my coat managed to break loose, and was flapping in the wind before I was able to grab it shut, and button it again. And fellers, I had a glimpse of something white, like a letter, that had slipped out of my pocket, and was carried over the fence into Brainard's woods!"
"Wow! and again, wow!" exclaimed Giraffe, that being his favorite way of expressing surprise and interest in anything.
"I thought at the time that it must be only a scrap of waste paper I happened to be carrying in my pocket; but fellers, it just broke in on me a little while back that it _might_ have been that very important letter I was to give to Mr. Harriman at the bank!"
"Oh! the chances are ten to one it wasn't, Bumpus," said Thad, who saw that the scout was really dreadfully worried, and in a fair way to have his whole vacation trip to the woods spoiled by over anxiety.
"Perhaps you're right, Thad, and it's kind of you to bolster up my hopes like you do; but then, there is one chance, you see, that I lost that document; and I'm wondering right now what it could be. Oh! what if it was so important that my folks would suffer because I lost it? Think how I'd feel if I came home after having the time of my life up here, and found all the household stuff out on the street, and the red flag of an auctioneer telling people that the Stedman place was for sale? Whew! it makes me feel chilly all over just to think of what I may have done. Then I just say to myself that of course you delivered that letter Bumpus Stedman; you couldn't be so wrapped up in getting ready for the start on this jaunt as to just forget all about it. And now, it's too late to go back, and I've just got to worry and worry until I lose pounds every day. And perhaps, when we go back, I'll be a living skeleton, like Giraffe here. Oh! that's the worst of it. Better learn to quit callin' me Bumpus, fellers, because right soon it won't fit at all."